Customer Reviews

I Love Macarons

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Overall, I really like the look of this book and purchased six of them, one for myself and five others for friends. But, for a book that is dedicated solely to the creation of the macaron, the French Meringue recipe will not yield successful macarons. After many many batches attempting to recreate the results shown in the book, I finally went in search of help on the internet and discovered this site: [...].

Helen Dujardin is 100% french, and in my opinion the US-based macaron guru. With her assistance, I have been able to correct the French Meringue recipe in I Love Macarons. There is a great deal of essential information missing from the book. For example, the amount of egg white needed is 90 gr, definitely DO NOT use three large eggs as even medium eggs will yield more white than needed. And, the eggs must first be aged. To age them, they need to be out of their shells, separated from the yolks and left to stand uncovered for a couple of days at room temperature in the coolest part of your kitchen. (To understand this process better and learn a work around, read Helen DuJardin's article Demystifying Macarons found on the internet.) Using non-aged eggs will cause the pied or foot of your macarons to spread. The pied should not extend beyond the shell.

Secondly, the information in the book on confectioner's sugar is confusing. For instance, the book says not to use confectioner's sugar containing cornstarch (cornstarch-free sugar is not available in the US as far as I can tell). However, the product sample pictured in the book, by Woodstock Farms, actually does contain cornstarch. I tried making my own cornstarch-free confectioner's sugar by whirling it around in my food processor until it was a fine dust, but this yielded very unsatisfactory results in the form of dull, cracked macarons with no pied. What I learned from Helen DuJardin, is that it is okay to use confectioner's sugar with cornstarch, but stay away from the discount brands as they may contain more cornstarch than sugar. The recipe in the book calls for 1 1/2 cups of confectioner's sugar and that should be increased to approximately 1 3/4 cup or 200 gr.

The amount of granulated sugar called for in the book is 5 tablespoons, however, I followed Helen DuJardin's recipe and used 2 tablespoons, and this is where the superfine sugar I made in my food processor came in handy and I used this rather than granulated sugar in my meringue.

The recipe in the book calls for 2/3 cup ground almond flour, way less than what is actually required. Use a full, firmly-packed cup or 110 gr. I purchased a five-pound bag on the internet from Honeyville but after reading Helen DuJardin's article, I will use fresh blanched almonds in the future as the pre-ground almond flour tends to be dry and will not yield optimal results. Blanched (without the dark skin) almonds will give you a macaron without the little specks, but either with or without skin will work.

From the standpoint of technique, and in addition to an accurate receipe, making macarons is all about the technique. Unfortunatley, I also found some problems with the techniques as described in the book. For example, the meringue should be whipped (on medium-high speed) just to the point where it will not slide out of the mixer bowl, reaching a medium stiff texture, or it will be too dry. The book says to beat on high until the meringue is stiff, firm and glossy, which may take it too far.

The macaronage technique (blending the meringue with the almonds and sugar) in the book is guaranteed to overwork your batter. What I found most helpful is Helen DuJardin's instruction that the whole process should take no more than 50 strokes. Too many strokes equals overworked batter and will give you thin batter that will not hold up once piped onto the cookie sheet. And, as an amateur patissier, it is important to note that while you do not want to overwork your batter, you do not have to worry about deflating the meringue as with other recipes.

As far as using two baking sheets is concerned, I found that when using a good quality baking sheet, lined with a Silpat or parchment paper,(a good recipe and proper technique), it is not necessary to use double baking pans and this actually kept my macarons from completely cooking on the bottoms, making them sticky and difficult to remove. As for cooking time, I think you will need to work with that a bit on your individual ovens. 280 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 - 18 minutes is what Helen Dujardin recommends.

I also had a problem with the butter cream making technique. When making the sugar syrup component, four minutes in the microwave is far too much time and cooking times can vary from one microwave to another. This is something better accomplished with a thermometer and getting the sugar to a temperature of approximately 235 to 240 degrees Fahrenheit.

In defense of Hisako Ogita, the author of I Love Macarons, I suspect that someone somewhere in the book publishing process tampered with her recipes, or perhaps they were corrupted in translation. She looks as if she genuinely does love macarons and is obviously getting successful results. In all my research, I did discover that professional patissiers prefer the Italian Meringue recipe over the French for consistent results (perhaps that is what Hisako used). I haven't gotten that far in I Love Macarons as of yet. The Italian recipe does require a little more technique expertise, but I think mastering the French one will prepare me for that eventuality.

Good Luck!

The first time I had a macaron in Paris, I knew I was addicted... This book is an excellant weapon to have in your macaron arsenal.

Hisako does a great job walking you through the method of preparation with these challenging but full of flavor cookies. All kitchen tools you will need are explained. Troubleshooting techniques as well. She explains the two different types of batter for preparing the shell, which is impossible to find on the internet. The methods are easily written for the baking beginner to follow and understand. Detailed info on the flavoring agents, ingredients (props for using organic powdered sugar (many do not realize the importance of this).

Once you have mastered the macaron shell and all the flavor options, you will move on to the cream filling. There are many types of creams, curds, custards, and ganche recipes. Detailed enough so they are easy to follow without overkill. The pictures are prefect.

The book will wrap up (pun intended) with gift wrapping ideas for the macarons. If you have been to Paris then you know what I mean. Parisans take their macarons very serious.

Last, (I will have to say is genious also because you never see this in a cookbook), she gives you recipes to make addional items with the leftover egg yolks. (Remember macarons are powdered sugar, ground almond, egg whites.) From creams, puddings, brulee, to ice cream. I thought that was a nice touch to have in a book.

The content is detailed, not overwhelming, straight forard for the new baker and in depth enough for the macaron connoisseur.

I highly recommend this book you are have the desire to bake these at home and learn about macarons. Great value for the price!

**I would like to add on after baking a few macarons, pay close attention to the fact that you are using a 375 oven with DOUBLE baking sheets, that is not traditional but yeilds great results and gives you some "room for error" or adj if needed towards the end of baking. GLTA!

I noticed that a lot of the reviews come from people who haven't tried using the recipe yet, and I just made my first batch using the French meringue technique and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents:

As written, it didn't work in my kitchen. Good-tasting, but it cracked and no pied. I had initially thought that the technique described or baking temperatures suggested were off. If you look on pg 28, she slides the baking pan in a Japanese-style oven that looks like a giant toaster oven. Surely a larger American-style oven would require different directions?

However, I noticed that David Lebovitz's recipe is nearly identical in procedure, down to the 375 degree oven, but is different in ingredient proportions. (It's posted here: [...]) Is it possible the ingredients that one could obtain in Japan are of slightly different proportion and composition? Maybe they have smaller eggs in Japan? It's hard to say.

The frequent typos, as other reviewers have mentioned, were annoying and unprofessional.

Is this book completely worthless, then? Not at all. It's beautifully designed and whimsically photographed. It depicts macaron-making as fun and completely do-able in your kitchen. One could very easily go down the path of scientific analysis when it comes to making these pastries, which is useful for troubleshooting, but does little to inspire someone to try it at all.

This book is very Japanesey kawaii, or cute to look at, but lacks functionality. The measurements are off, causing the batter to be far too runny. I attempted to mix the basic batter two times, the first sticking true, carefully weighing the ingredients, and the second time increasing the amount of almond flour. Both times the batter ran together on the pan. I attempted making macarons using a recipe found online, one that used less eggs, and more almond flour, and it worked fine. I'd say buy this book for the cute factor, not for the bake factor.

I recently bought some macarons at a famous, high-end bakery in Yountville, CA, and immediately I wanted to learn how to create these charming little treats. Although I find a lot of my recipes online, I had the gut instinct that macarons needed more instruction, despite their relatively simple outward appearance. And I was right. The techniques in this delightful, thin cookbook require some knowledge and experience, despite the clear instructions. As long as readers understand the vocabulary (mostly explained in the book) and basic French pastry techniques, they will succeed. Others may take more time to learn. These pastries are not for the baker who expects to whip up macarons in the time it takes to bake a batch of brownies.

Unless you know what makes the "perfect" macaron and what it takes to get there, you won't understand the excitement of seeing the "pieds," or frilled bases, form on the macarons while they are in the oven. It's not that creating macarons is particularly time-consuming or difficult, only that it takes skill, instinct, and confidence. And once you know what your goal is, you cannot help but feel the triumph of success. I failed only once, on my second attempt, but now that I know the techniques, I'm confident that I won't run into problems in the future unless I'm careless or impatient. Fortunately, author Ogita offers a troubleshooting page to pinpoint where readers might have gone wrong.

Instead of supplying individual macaron recipes in different flavors, Ogita goes with a mix-and-match philosophy. You choose one of two macaron recipes -- French or Italian -- and then choose your flavors and colors from color pages, either to add to the almond flour or to the meringue.

Although the author offers a recipe for real French buttercream as one of the fillings (this requires cooked sugar syrup, eggs, and butter), you can cut down your kitchen time by making American buttercream (butter and confectioners sugar -- recipe not included) or ganache. Okita supplies recipes for other fillings: chestnut cream, lemon curd, caramel cream. She then provides a wide variety of flavors, as she does with the macarons themselves, to add the one of two buttercream recipes, making the possible variations enormous.

If you don't have a high-end grocery store in your area where you can find commercial almond flour, I recommend ordering Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour at the same time you buy this book. Store the almond flour in the freezer to keep it from going rancid; however, you'll need to bring the flour up to room temperature before you use it. Although you can make your own almond flour in the food processor, it is difficult to get it fine enough or to avoid making it into almond butter. Even if you eventually want to make your own almond flour, I recommend using commercially milled almond flour for your first few times, at least until you're familiar with the techniques and possible pitfalls, since starting with insufficiently fine flour will doom your recipe.

This cookbook offers a solid introduction to creating the perfect macaron. Anyone can learn, even beginning bakers; however, the more experience you have, the better your chances of success the first time out. Now that I know the technique, I can make two batches back-to-back without much time or trouble. And I still get excited when I see the pieds.

-- Debbie Lee Wesselmann

This book is adorable and provides lots of inspiration for flavors and combinations. The photos are beautiful, and I love the concept of giving the cook the tools and allowing them to choose their own flavor combinations.

The directions and ratios leave much to be desired. Having learned to make macarons successfully in culinary school, I could tell right away that there were issues with the recipes and instructions, but I tried them anyway because there is often more than one way to skin a cat. Not in this case. Both recipes for the batter are flawed.

It's too bad, because this book had so much potential.

I was very impressed with the authors ability to translate making macarons into an easy and fun cooking project. The pictures are very helpful and the recipes are great! This is a must book for any serious amateur dessert maker!

I think the author does a great job of showing how to create macarons with step by step photos and I love the flavor combinations (some of them inspired by Japanese flavors). I have made two batches of macaron so far and now my batter is the perfect consistency for piping and the macarons came out with a crisp shell and a pied (foot) using the French Macaron technique. I weighed out my ingredients with a scale and used three egg whites (90grams) for the usual recipe but I will warn you that for the chocolate flavored macaron you will have to use only two egg whites (60grams) as the almond flour and confectioner's sugar amounts are much less. I can't wait to make more of the macarons now that I have the hang of it; I give credit to the author for clarifying the process of making a macaron and then giving lots of freedom to experiment for yourself with trial and error. I don't think I could of done this after all the reading I did on the web (and I have done tons of research on the web, and still did not find enough courage to try the macaron!!).
So this book really is for people who have enough baking skills to try a recipe with guidance in technique; then adjusting it accordingly and improve on their technique to bake the perfect macaron.

I love macarons. So when I saw this cookbook, I knew I had to have it. Well, I've made these macarons 4 times now, and I can't understand why the recipe WILL NOT WORK. The first two times, I made the recipe as it said. The third time, my mom tried to make them. I tried a fourth time (adding 1/3 c more almond meal after reading some reviews on the recipe), and still the macarons were not even close to the adorable and delicious ones that I would buy at a bakery. The pictures are great and the section about what to make with the leftover egg yolks is wonderfully useful, but I am overwhelmingly disappointed by the instructions and the recipe. I would have rated this book a 2 for the overall cuteness but as a cookbook, 'I Love Macarons' lacks in clarity and instruction in how to make a proper macaron.

My first Macaron experience was about a year ago at a neighborhood bakery...I was HOOKED!! Ogita's book was the first book I have found dedicated to Macaron making.

What I love about this book is Ogita has provided photos of the tools she uses (not fancy tools either, she uses a hand mixer!) She clearly explains each step, each tool used, and different Macaron flavors.

I made the basic recipe a couple days ago and was very excited to see a pied on 3 of my macarons! Not all of them turned out as beautiful as Ogita's, but everyone LOVED and raved about them!

NOTE: one note of caution - Ogita suggests you can boil the sugar in a microwave for 4 minutes. I think it's a bit long as when I opened the microwave my bowl had cracked and there was burnt sugar EVERYWHERE..... I ended up cooking it over the stove and it worked out fine. If you want to try the microwave method, keep an eye out.